Last night at church, we started a group study of Ephesians. We covered chapter 1 last night. As we were reading the text and discussing it, the follownig passage got my attention:
6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.
The one thing I really noticed here was God's generosity toward us. God's grace has been freely given to us in Christ. We experience redemption, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of God's grace, that He lavished on us.
God is not stingy. He's not waiting for us to perform at a certain level before He'll talk to us. We don't have to earn the right to come before Him -- as if we could ever be good enough on our own to do that. He freely extends the offer of salvation, and he completely wipes the slate clean when we respond in faith to Christ's sacrifice for us.
Oh what a Savior!